W. Bruce Wheeler, Ph.D.
Director Emeritus, Chancellor's Honors Program
Professor Emeritus, Department of History
Dr. Bruce Wheeler served as director of the University Honors Program from 1988 to 1994. In 2007, he accepted the honorary position of Director Emeritus, serving the recently rechristened Chancellor’s Honors Program as a professor and valued mentor. As indicated by his keynote address to the 2007 annual meeting of the Tennessee Collegiate Honors Council, Dr. Wheeler is the University of Tennessee’s senior ambassador vis-à-vis honors educators statewide. Given his extensive involvement in community and regional affairs, Dr. Wheeler is also the Chancellor’s Honors Program’s principal liaison to Knoxville and East Tennessee.
Dr. Wheeler received his B. A. from Duke University (1961), his M. A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1963), and his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia (1967). In addition to the University of Tennessee, Dr. Wheeler has held faculty appointments at the University of Virginia, Northern Illinois University, the State University of New York at Cortland, Ohio University, and Lynchburg College.
In recognition of his teaching excellence, Dr. Wheeler twice received the University of Tennessee National Alumni Outstanding Teacher Award (1980, 1986). Prior to this achievement, Dr. Wheeler received the Dean’s Teaching Award (1979), the Beta Sigma Phi Outstanding Teacher Award (1972), and the Ohio University Outstanding Teacher Award (1968).
In recognition of his outstanding service, Dr. Wheelerreceived the highly prestigious National Alumni Association Public Service Award (2002). He was also awarded the L. R. Hester Award for Excellence in Teaching and Service (1997) and the Student Government Association’s L. R. Hester Award (1979). Dr. Wheeler serves on numerous boards, from the Board of Advisers for the University of Tennessee Press to the Board of Directors of the Wears Valley Volunteer Fire Department, and he regularly delivers invited public addresses.
Dr. Wheeler is first and foremost, however, a scholar. A recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Fellowship at the University of Virginia, Dr. Wheeler is the author of Knoxville, Tennessee: A Mountain City in the New South (second edition, 2005); TVA and the Tellico Dam, 1936-1979: A Bureaucratic Crisis in Post-Industrial America (with Michael J. McDonald, 1986, revised 2005); Discovering the American Past (2 volumes, with Susan D. Becker, 1986, sixth edition 2007); Discovering the Western Past (2 volumes, with Merry Wiesner, Frank Doeninger, Kenneth Curtis, 1997, second edition 2002); as well as dozens of additional textbooks, anthologies, monographs, scholarly articles, and reviews. Among other projects, Dr. Wheeler is currently writing a history of the University of Tennessee.
